Spoiler Warning: references to "Becoming"
Rating: PG
Summary: Whistler provides a little philosophical input that helps Buffy
rethink her plans for the future.
Disclaimer: I write this while worshiping at the lotus feet of Joss
Whedon, and all his minions, who own all the characters which I humbly
barrow for the purposes of this story. Imitation is the sincerest form
of flattery, and this is merely my way of expressing my love for "Buffy
the Vampire Slayer."
Buffy watched her world begin to fall behind her as the bus pulled away from its stop. She was too deep in misery to cry. There wasn't any point. Tears would not bring release from the ocean of sorrow inside her, or from the memories that assailed her each time her lungs stubbornly drew breath to keep her alive. Kendra lying in a pool of her own blood. Willow unconscious and pale in her hospital bed. Xander with his arm broken, and his eyes full of fear. Giles, broken in body and spirit, tortured because she fell for Angel's ruse instead of protecting him. Her mother, believing the police, thinking she was insane. 'If you walk out of this house, don't even think about coming back.' And Angel. Oh, God, Angel...
She was so overwhelmed with her sorrow, she didn't pay any attention when someone settled into the seat beside her. There seemed no reason to keep her guard up, to pay any attention to the world around her, until the familiar voice spoke in her ear.
"Where you going, girl?"
In other circumstances, she might have taken offense at the appellation, but the voice was kind, empathetic, and sounded as weary as she was. She raised her dejected gaze to the demon who spoke to her.
"Whistler," she acknowledged him. "What are you doing here? Haven't you already done your job?"
"You mean delivering my message? That was only part of my job, kid," he told her.
"Yeah? Well, you've helped to save the world from the demon Acafla, what are you going to do now?" she intoned in the exaggerated enunciation of an ad campaign.
"I'm going to keep on doing what I've been doing."
"And what is that?" she asked without a trace of interest.
"Looking out for you, making sure you're still in a position to keep the world, and consequently, my place it it, safe."
"Must be nice to have a place in the world," she said turning her sightless gaze back to the window.
"You think you've lost that?"
"Haven't I?"
"No, honey, you haven't. That why you're on this bus when everyone who cares for you is back there wondering where you are, or if you're even alive?"
"You'd better watch it with that sweet talk, Whistler. I have a bad history when it comes to boyfriends," she said wryly.
"Hey, sweetheart, you gotta know that wasn't your fault. You did what you had to do, what Angel would have wanted you to do. You saved the world and everybody in it from the terrors of Hell. And take it from someone who knows, that is nothing to shrug off."
"Somehow that doesn't make me feel better."
"Then maybe you should go back home... and let all those people worrying about you make you feel better."
"Whistler, there are two kinds of people in the world," she turned to him, feeling resolve begin to buoy her drowning soul. "The people who know what I am, and the people who don't. The ones who know about me are all in danger because of it. And the ones who don't, want to put me in either a jail cell or a straight jacket. I can't live like that anymore." Her eyes returned to the window. "It's better if I just let them go on with their lives without me."
"I think they might have a different opinion about that. Besides, who's going to protect them from the next baddie that decides it likes the vibes comin' from the Hell mouth?"
"They'll be okay," Buffy argued, dropping her eyes to her lap. "Millions of people live their whole lives without ever knowing about the Hell mouth... without knowing that vampires and demons and the things that go bump in the night are real. A lot of them walk around feeling perfectly safe until the day they die."
"Forewarned is forearmed. All those people you talk about, walking around feeling safe until they die- a lot of them die sooner because they didn't believe in the thing that goes bump in the night. Besides, you really think Giles and Willow and Xander will ever be able to forget what they've seen? What they've been through?"
Buffy paused, the well of loneliness threatening to swallow her at the mention of her friends, but her determination was the only solid emotion she had, and she clung to it.
"Maybe they won't ever forget, but at least if I'm not there they won't be targets anymore. Willow, Xander, Cordelia, they all got involved because of me. Even Giles would have been just another Watcher living on the outskirts of the supernatural, carefully keeping his diary and reading his books over endless cups of tea, if it hadn't been for me. Safe. They wouldn't be following me into the fray, getting themselves wounded, or worse..."
"So you've got it all figured out, have you?" Whistler said, his voice taking on a harder tone. "You've decided how to go about saving everyone, not only from the vampires but from themselves. You know, I've got to hand it to you. When he first told me about you I never would have figured you would take to the job so completely. I figured you for a real powder puff... like that lollipop you were sucking on, all sugar and no substance. But here you are, taking charge. Making all the decisions for everybody..."
Buffy tried to ignore him, but her attention was caught by one incongruous phrase.
"What do you mean 'When he first told you about me?'" she interrupted him, looking at him sharply. "Who told you about me? What lollipop? When was this?"
Whistler's eyes widened ever so slightly and she knew that he had let slip something he hadn't intended. She saw the moment of frantic calculation when he tried to think of a way to cover his mistake before he abandoned the effort and leveled with her.
"When we met, you guessed that I was sent down to even the score between good and evil. Angel was one of my most important projects. I don't know how much he told you about himself before he met you..."
"Practically nothing," she supplied. "I don't think he really wanted me to know about the things he had done while he didn't have a soul."
"I don't blame him for that," Whistler sympathized. "I didn't know him personally then, but I heard stories..." They were both silent for a moment, uneasy with the reference to the sins of their friend. "Anyway, I was talkin' more about the time in between when he was cursed and when he met you. For about ninety years after Angel was cursed, he was really at loose ends. He was definitely not the kind of guy to catch a young slayer's eye, if you know what I mean. But he wasn't hurting anyone anymore, so everyone sort of left him alone. His old buddies didn't want anything to do with him, and our side, well, I guess we didn't see any use for him, so we kind of left him to his own devices. We hoped he'd clean up his act and join our side, but no one had the time to help things along."
Buffy swallowed at the lump in her throat. Angel had been a loner all the time she had known him, but she had begun to suspect that it was more a habit he didn't know how to break than a natural inclination. And there had been times between the two of them when he had held her so tight she didn't think he'd ever let her go, times when his loneliness had been a palpable thing, a demon as real as the one that pulsed in his veins.
Whistler saw her sorrow and recognized its source.
"Yeah. Sometimes you get so busy worrying about the big picture, you forget to think about the little details, like people. That's why I'm so worried about you and this plan of yours, kid. I don't think you realize the affect your leaving is going to have on everyone back in Sunnydale," he hinted, but she was too intent on what he was telling her about Angel to defend her decision again. He didn't press the point, either. "But, as I was saying, those of us on our side started to get hints of this whole Acafla thing a couple of years ago, and every hint we got pointed straight to Angel, who was, at the time, a complete nobody, living on the streets, and feeling mighty sorry for himself. There was no telling which way things would go if nobody took him in hand, so to speak, and got him on the right track."
"So they sent you."
"Right. I took one look at Angel and knew that what he needed was a purpose in life, or rather in un-death. And I figured that if anyone could be useful to a new slayer, it was a vampire with a soul. The slayer before you had just been killed, so I sent Angel to get a look at you. I figured he'd see you with your Watcher, learning how to fight the forces of darkness, learning about your destiny, and he might get a few ideas about his own destiny, about how he could make up for some of the things he had done instead of just drowning under the guilt like he had for the past century or so.
"Well, he came back with a purpose, all right... but he also came back in love with you."
"I don't understand," Buffy said, her mind reeling with his revelation. "If he knew about me all that time, why didn't he come to me in L.A.? Why did he pretend not to know about me? When I first saw him in Sunnydale, he said he had expected me to be taller," Buffy frowned at the memory of how annoying he had endeavored to be. "If he knew who I was..."
"Yeah, I was kind of surprised by how he handled that myself. After all the work he had done to clean himself up and all, I kind of figured he'd fall at your feet at the first opportunity, but I guess you don't have a monopoly on the martyr complex, do you?"
"I don't understand what you mean."
"I mean Angel spent a lot of time and effort making sure you wouldn't get too close, despite the fact that he was in love with you, because he was afraid of putting you in danger, and here you are, running away from everybody that you love 'cause you're afraid of putting *them* in danger."
Buffy didn't like the comparison he was drawing.
"Well, Angel was right to do what he did, wasn't he? If I had listened to all the times he warned me away, he would still be here now, wouldn't he?"
"Would he? If you two were meant to be together, do you really think any amount of selflessness on both your parts could have kept you apart? Maybe what happened was inevitable... all a part of your destinies."
"Destiny?" Buffy felt the flames of a long banked anger flare inside her. "I'm sick and tired of hearing about destiny. If this was all gonna happen anyway, then why didn't you know about it? If you knew about Angel and Acafla two years ago, how come you didn't know what would happen between Angel and me?"
"Just goes to show you, kid, can't predict the future no matter how hard you try. We thought you and Angel would be the best demon fighting team since... since Gabriel and Shiva. For a while it looked like it was working, too. But instead the whole thing backfired on us and we ended up creating the very circumstances that would give Acafla his shot at destroying the world.
"On the other hand, everything that happened also insured that you would be there with the determination and the knowledge you needed to stop Acafla. Maybe we're all tools in the hands of Fate. Maybe everything we did in our efforts to control the future was only a part of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"Now you're trying to control the future. You've set yourself up as a martyr, sacrificing the company of the people you love to keep them safe. But what if by doing that all you're really doing is leaving them unprotected? What if they still put themselves in danger for your sake, but you're not there to save them? Then they die thinking you abandoned them instead of at your side as they would choose to do. What if they try to hold things together without you, but because you're not there, they don't have your skills or your insight? What if they try to do a slayer's job without a slayer?"
Buffy closed her eyes against his questions, but she couldn't close her mind.
"So there's nothing we can do?" she said, her tone rejecting the possibility even as she raised it. "People will die, and the dark forces will win no matter what we do?"
"Did I say that?" Whistler countered. "If I believed that, then what am I doing here? Why aren't I hiding out in Manhattan, getting my fill of the material world before it all goes to Hell? Did you know that it's impossible to get a real New York hot dog on this side of the country? If none of this matters, then why am I bothering to track you down?
"I don't know if what we do really affects the future or not. All I'm saying is that we can't predict the effects of our actions, and that's what I see you doing. You've convinced yourself that if you run away, all the trouble in Sunnydale will follow you, but I just don't think that's going to happen. So if all we can be sure about is the present, we might as well make the most of it. And that means standing by the people you love, and not giving them up without a fight. Spend every moment with them that you can 'cause you don't want to live with the regrets you'll have later if you don't, and if the worst happens, some times knowing that you were there and that you did everything you could is the only consolation you get."
"Small consolation," Buffy said darkly.
"True," Whistler agreed. "But better than nothing."
Buffy sat examining her hands for a long moment. The further they were carried from home, the weaker her resolve grew. She wanted to go home. She wanted Willow and Xander and Giles, and even Cordelia. She wanted her mother. She wanted to curl up in her mother's arms like she had the night of her birthday, remembering what her life had been like before she had a destiny, before she had become a danger to everyone she loved. She wanted to tell her mother that she loved her and explain that she hadn't done the things she had done because she was bad, but because she had a responsibility that few people could understand and no one could relieve her of.
"Sometimes you don't get any consolation. Sometimes you have to face things alone. Isn't that what you told me? 'In the end you're always by yourself. You're all you've got. That's the point.'"
"All the more reason to take advantage of companionship when you can. Listen, Buffy, I didn't tell you that thing about being alone to send you off on some existential... bus trip. I told you that because I've watched Angel for a long time. I know how he thinks, both the demon and the man, and I knew that once he had put all of your friends out of commission he would use that to make you feel powerless, to make you think you couldn't fight him alone. And you had to know that even alone, you were strong enough to stop him. But, honey, just because you can go it alone doesn't mean you have to. There are still people back there waiting for you who have chosen to stand by you in spite of the risks because they know it's the right thing to do, just like you know that being the slayer is the right thing for you to do. The power to make your own decisions. That's the power you humans have."
"Power? I thought you just told me I couldn't control a damned thing."
"Did I say that? No. You may not be able to control the future, but you can always choose your own actions. Sometimes those actions will be exactly what you intended them to be, and sometimes they'll be mistakes. Sometimes you won't be able to tell the difference, but they will always be yours. That's the great thing about being human. Every one of you is free to make your own mistakes. Believe me, an existence without that freedom is a very boring thing. Without it, nothing new ever happens. Demons may be many things, but original is not one of them. That's why we find you so fascinating and so frightening. Those of us that are frightened of you want to destroy you. Those of us that are fascinated could be happy until the end of time just watching you. Watching you create yourselves and your world. And you, maybe more than any other slayer I've ever seen, have the power to make new things happen. Maybe that's why we miscalculated this time. We never would have guessed that you would have fallen in love with a vampire, whether or not he had a soul. That was a singularly human thing to do."
"'To err is human,'" Buffy quoted morosely. Whistler smiled and took one of her hands in his.
"And to be human is divine," he paraphrased. For a moment his eyes seemed to look right through hers into her soul. "Take it from one who *knows*."
Buffy looked back into his eyes for a long moment, trying to see what he saw, trying to understand.
"Besides," Whistler said gently, "do you really think loving him was a mistake?"
"No," she said with a quiet conviction that she hadn't felt for a long time. It felt good to be sure of something again after so much doubt and uncertainty. She took a deep, clear breath and released it. "I can't believe I'm sitting here thinking about taking the advice of a demon."
"A surprise around every corner," Whistler said. "That's what I love about your world."
"Even if I go back, I still have to deal with the police."
"Every witness to Kendra's death is on your side," Whistler said. "Plus, you'd be surprised at the things those Watchers can accomplish when they put their minds to it. They've got connections all over the place."
"I've been expelled from school again."
"Skinner," Whistler nodded grimly. "He may be harder to handle, but we'll work something out."
"My mother..." Buffy couldn't bring herself to finish that thought. Whistler gripped her hand tighter in sympathy.
"We'll work that out, too. Parents say all kinds of things they don't mean. And if worse comes to worst, we just have Willow cast a spell on her, make her forget about the vampire on the front steps, and the whole slayer thing. Couldn't be too hard. She bought the barbecue fork story, didn't she?"
"You really have been spying on me, haven't you?" Buffy said beginning to feel a bit annoyed now that some of her deeper worries were receding and she could feel solid ground beneath her feet again.
"Just doin' my job, kid," he apologized with a shrug.
"You aren't going to disappear again, are you?" she asked, squeezing his hand unconsciously.
"Naw, I'll stick around until you get things sorted out," he reassured her. Buffy nodded satisfied that she wouldn't be alone to face the fall out of the last few days.
"So you've made a decision?" Whistler asked.
"Yes," Buffy answered.
"Then all you gotta do is act on it, kid."
Buffy turned to the window, reached up to grasp the 'Next Stop' cord... And pulled.
The End